The words a baby took on a new significance. Now
Ive a schoolgirl complexion all over. The flat off the Edgware Road wasnt too bad.
Things would have to be boughtpiecemeal, when they had a few bob to spare. He slid a
shoeless foot from underthe counterpane, held it up, and looked at it. The whole
concept of poetry was meaningless tohim now.
And he had made such awretched failure of
it!
You dontfeel Ive sort of bullied you into
it?
He would have gone without beer even if he
couldhave afforded it.
There were hundreds ofthem in the
library.
A refaned, adenoidal feminine voice answered him:
Whos thyah,please? Below were little skinny legs, twistedlike a monkeys with the
toes turned in. They said good-bye to Ravelston outside the restaurant.
Gordon knew her type at a glance, but he was too
preoccupied tocare.
You cant doubt itwhen you see the Bovex
ads.
With difficulty mastering hervoice, she added:
Well, what did you decide?
I know youd hate to be tied to aregular
job.
Rage at being back in the clutchof
money?
A panorama of ignorance, greed, vulgarity,
snobbishness,whoredom, and disease. His long and lonely war had ended inignominious
defeat. The words a baby took on a new significance.
They had their standards, theirinviolable points of
honour. There arent so many good jobs waiting for moth-eatenpeople of
thirty.
They had made the issueclearer and uglier than
before.
He was coming back to the fold, repentant. They
disgusted Gordonso much that he turned his back on them till they had chosen
theirbooks. And it was not merely because of Rosemary and the baby that he haddone
it. At another time he would havebeen afraid of her; at present, however, she merely
bored him.
Itwas a different matter in the Middle
Ages.
He wanted to sink down, down into themuck where
money does not rule.
And THAT was the world they wanted him to re-enter.
Rosemary looked twenty-eight, perhaps; Gordon looked at leastthirty-five. Gordon,
left to himself, would havedone it in a more regular manner.