literary or artistic nature.’ That’s probably why you’re drunken.”
“Everyone’s drunken,” murmurs the manager. “The brain is a chunk of grey pudding but it works at high temperature. It has to be cooled with drink. Well—do you want to meet the men?”
“I’ve already met them,” I explain. “I was in the queue. At least I didn’t meet them all, but I don’t suppose they vary much do they?”
“Not much. Some are kinder, some crueler—but our arrangements are flexible enough now to accommodate the little individual variations and extract the requisite amount of labor from them all. We’ve no time to worry about idiosyncrasies and minor differences. Personality’s dead, deader than chivalry. Well, are you coming to the party?”
He pours himself a swift drink from a bottle in his desk drawer. An aide or assistant comes in with his new tinted suit from the further development. Lights hiss on and, beyond the stony eye, the flares blaze out above the geometry. I allow myself to be drawn along and, in a short time, we pull up outside a very different prospect. I begin to feel slight misgivings .
“I’m not used to this sort of affair,” I confide. “I don’t think I really belong. Besides, what will Arthur say?”
“I don’t know,” grumbles the manager. “I never know what anyone will say, not even myself. My notion at this sort offunction is simply to raise the internal fluid level as rapidly as possible. And then maybe find a girl. But then I’m only a coarse manager, only tolerated by all these posturing, obsolete waxworks because they need me. They need us, my boy, remember that. And don’t be afraid of Arthur. I’ll tell him what a splendid day’s work you did. I’ll tell him you exceeded your quota. Do you smell drink?”
I sniff the evening air blowing amongst the cool, high elms, stirring the well-kept lawn with its few decorative leaves, but smell only an indistinct scummy smell as if a fetid pond had been drained.
“Only ooze,” I confess, “like tidal ooze.”
“There are tides flowing tonight,” mutters the manager but I am not sure what he means.
“Shall we follow those fire-flies?” I ask. “They might lead us to an earl, on the telephone or rehearsing a speech. You see those fire-flies, romancing with the leaves? Each fire-fly courts a single trembling leaf and they carry the first-born to the nearest earl or accountant. It sounds feudal, I know, but History coils and re-coils and we never know when we open our lids—”
“You’re talking rubbish,” complains the manager. “I wish I could see better.”
“It’s because I’m nervous,” I protest. “I’m trying to rehearse for the charming play of witty, allusive speech that we’re sure to encounter. That’s what happens at this sort of function. Everyone strolls under the ornamented marquees or congregates around some object and the air becomes full with a continual murmur of delicious banter, poor admittedly in philosophy, but how rich, how beguilingly rich—”
“Have you brought a compass?” asks the manager.
His tone is sober. All thought of banter leaves me as I gaze, with sudden foreboding, around the festive and yet somehowambiguous scene. It is hard to clarify the celebrants. They can be descried all right: the shimmering gowns of the women haunting their nakedness as they drift amongst the apertures and ramps, the grave bondage of the men as they roll boulders or tread boulders— They can be descried, but neither I nor the manager, if sympathy does, in fact, link our understanding, can apprehend the exact, the clearly defined sector of their activities.
“What period?” asks the manager.
“Neo-Cretan,” I suggest. “Neo-Neolithic. The gongs are suggestive.”
“And the hair styles?”
“Ah, I wondered if you’d notice the hair styles. Would it be ludicrous to detect a marine or sea-spray influence? There’s a net motif—and surely that’s ribbing, or keel? The hair
“Everyone’s drunken,” murmurs the manager. “The brain is a chunk of grey pudding but it works at high temperature. It has to be cooled with drink. Well—do you want to meet the men?”
“I’ve already met them,” I explain. “I was in the queue. At least I didn’t meet them all, but I don’t suppose they vary much do they?”
“Not much. Some are kinder, some crueler—but our arrangements are flexible enough now to accommodate the little individual variations and extract the requisite amount of labor from them all. We’ve no time to worry about idiosyncrasies and minor differences. Personality’s dead, deader than chivalry. Well, are you coming to the party?”
He pours himself a swift drink from a bottle in his desk drawer. An aide or assistant comes in with his new tinted suit from the further development. Lights hiss on and, beyond the stony eye, the flares blaze out above the geometry. I allow myself to be drawn along and, in a short time, we pull up outside a very different prospect. I begin to feel slight misgivings .
“I’m not used to this sort of affair,” I confide. “I don’t think I really belong. Besides, what will Arthur say?”
“I don’t know,” grumbles the manager. “I never know what anyone will say, not even myself. My notion at this sort offunction is simply to raise the internal fluid level as rapidly as possible. And then maybe find a girl. But then I’m only a coarse manager, only tolerated by all these posturing, obsolete waxworks because they need me. They need us, my boy, remember that. And don’t be afraid of Arthur. I’ll tell him what a splendid day’s work you did. I’ll tell him you exceeded your quota. Do you smell drink?”
I sniff the evening air blowing amongst the cool, high elms, stirring the well-kept lawn with its few decorative leaves, but smell only an indistinct scummy smell as if a fetid pond had been drained.
“Only ooze,” I confess, “like tidal ooze.”
“There are tides flowing tonight,” mutters the manager but I am not sure what he means.
“Shall we follow those fire-flies?” I ask. “They might lead us to an earl, on the telephone or rehearsing a speech. You see those fire-flies, romancing with the leaves? Each fire-fly courts a single trembling leaf and they carry the first-born to the nearest earl or accountant. It sounds feudal, I know, but History coils and re-coils and we never know when we open our lids—”
“You’re talking rubbish,” complains the manager. “I wish I could see better.”
“It’s because I’m nervous,” I protest. “I’m trying to rehearse for the charming play of witty, allusive speech that we’re sure to encounter. That’s what happens at this sort of function. Everyone strolls under the ornamented marquees or congregates around some object and the air becomes full with a continual murmur of delicious banter, poor admittedly in philosophy, but how rich, how beguilingly rich—”
“Have you brought a compass?” asks the manager.
His tone is sober. All thought of banter leaves me as I gaze, with sudden foreboding, around the festive and yet somehowambiguous scene. It is hard to clarify the celebrants. They can be descried all right: the shimmering gowns of the women haunting their nakedness as they drift amongst the apertures and ramps, the grave bondage of the men as they roll boulders or tread boulders— They can be descried, but neither I nor the manager, if sympathy does, in fact, link our understanding, can apprehend the exact, the clearly defined sector of their activities.
“What period?” asks the manager.
“Neo-Cretan,” I suggest. “Neo-Neolithic. The gongs are suggestive.”
“And the hair styles?”
“Ah, I wondered if you’d notice the hair styles. Would it be ludicrous to detect a marine or sea-spray influence? There’s a net motif—and surely that’s ribbing, or keel? The hair
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