A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

when he’s going to behave like this. He has no time to check himself. Shamefaced, now, and avoiding all their eyes – Kenny Potter’s particularly – he fastens his gaze high up on the wall opposite.
    ‘Well, to begin at the beginning, Aphrodite once caught her lover Ares in bed with Eos, the goddess of the Dawn. (You’d better look them all up, while you’re about it.) Aphrodite was furious, of course, so she cursed Eos with a craze for handsome mortal boys – to teach her to leave other people’s gods alone.’ (George gets a giggle on this line from someone and is relieved; he has feared they would be offended by their scolding and sulk.) Not lowering his eyes yet, he continues, with a grin sounding in his voice. ‘Eos was terribly embarrassed, but she found she just couldn’t control herself, so she started kidnapping and seducing boys from the earth. Tithonus was one of them. As a matter of fact, she took his brother Ganymede along too – for company —’ (Louder giggles, from several parts of the room, this time.) ‘Unfortunately, Zeus saw Ganymede and fell madly in love with him.’ (If Sister Maria is shocked, that’s just too bad. George doesn’t look at her, however, but at Wally Bryant – about whom he couldn’t be more certain – and sure enough Wally is wriggling with delight.) ‘So, knowing that she’d have to give up Ganymede anyway, Eos asked Zeus, wouldn’t he, in exchange, make Tithonus immortal? So Zeus said, of course, why not? And he did it. But Eos was so stupid, she forgot to ask him to give Tithonus eternal youth, as well. Incidentally, that could quite easily have been arranged; Selene, the Moon goddess, fixed it up for her boy friend Endymion. The only trouble there was that Selene didn’t care to do anything but kiss, whereasEndymion had other ideas; so she put him into an eternal sleep to keep him quiet. And it’s not much fun being beautiful for ever and ever, when you can’t even wake up and look at yourself in a mirror.’ (Nearly everybody is smiling, now – yes, even Sister Maria. George beams at them. He does so hate unpleasantness.) ‘Where was I? Oh yes – so poor Tithonus gradually became a repulsively immortal old man —’ (Loud laughter.) ‘And Eos, with the characteristic heartlessness of a goddess, got bored with him and locked him up. And he got more and more gaga, and his voice got shriller and shriller, until suddenly one day he turned into a cicada.’
    This is a miserably weak pay-off. George hasn’t expected it to work, and it doesn’t. Mr Stoessel is quite frantic with uncomprehension and appeals to Dreyer in desperate whispers. Dreyer whispers back explanations, which cause further misunderstandings. Mr Stoessel gets it at last and exclaims, ‘Ach so – eine Zikade !’ in a reproachful tone which implies that it’s George and the entire Anglo-American world who have been mispronouncing the word. But by now George has started up again; and with a change of attitude. He’s no longer wooing them, entertaining them; he’s telling them, briskly, authoritatively. It is the voice of a judge, summing up and charging the jury.
    ‘Huxley’s general reason for choosing this title is obvious. However, you will have to ask yourselves how far it will bear application in detail to the circumstances of the story. For example, the Fifth Earl of Gonister can be accepted as a counterpart of Tithonus, and he ends by turning into a monkey, just as Tithonus turned into an insect. But what about Jo Stoyte? And Dr Obispo? He’sfar more like Goethe’s Mephistopheles than like Zeus. And who is Eos? Not Virginia Maunciple, surely? For one thing, I feel sure she doesn’t get up early enough.’ Nobody sees this joke. George still sometimes throws one away, despite all his experience, by muttering it, English style. A bit piqued by their failure to applaud, he continues, in an almost bullying tone, ‘But, before we can go any further, you’ve got to make up